Beautiful Day(84)

Margot entered the church and checked the sanctuary for Jenna. It was deserted.

The Congregationalists normally asked a volunteer to man the station by the stairway that led to the tower. But today the station was unoccupied. There was a table with a small basket and a card asking for donations of any amount. Margot had no money on her. She silently apologized as she headed up the stairs.

Up, up, up. The stairway was unventilated, and Margot grew dizzy. Those martinis, all that wine, four bites of lobster, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon, Griff’s brother killed in a highway accident. Chance’s mother at the groomsmen’s house at the same time as Ann Graham. Was that awkward? What was it like for Ann to see the woman whom her husband had had an affair with so many years ago? Margot would someday meet Lily the Pilates instructor; Margot would probably be invited to the wedding, since she and Drum Sr. were still friends. Margot used to love to watch Drum surf; she had been unable to resist him. All her children had his magic, if that was what it was, despite Carson’s near flunking and Ellie’s hoarding; they were all illuminated from within, which was a characteristic inherited from Drum, not from her. Kevin was an ass, Margot didn’t know how Beanie could stand him, and yet she’d been standing him just fine since she was fourteen years old. So there, Margot thought. Love did last. She wondered if her father had read the last page of the Notebook. She must remind him.

Margot was huffing by the time she reached the final flight of stairs. She couldn’t think about anything but the pain in her lungs. And water—she was dying of thirst.

At the top of the tower was the room with the windows. Standing at the window facing east—toward their house on Orange Street—was Jenna.

Margot gasped. She realized she hadn’t actually expected to find anyone up here, perhaps least of all the person she was looking for.

“Hey,” Jenna said. She sounded unsurprised and unimpressed. She was wearing the backless peach dress, which was now so bedraggled that she resembled a character from one of the stories they’d read as children—a street urchin from Dickens, Sara Crewe from A Little Princess, the Little Match Girl. She wore no shoes. If anyone but Margot had discovered Jenna up here, they would have called the police.

“Hey,” Margot said. She tried to keep her voice tender. She wasn’t positive that Jenna hadn’t completely lost her mind.

“I saw you walking up the street,” Jenna said. “I knew you were coming.”

“I had a hard time finding a parking spot,” Margot said. “Have you been here long?”

Jenna shrugged. “A little while.”

Margot moved closer to Jenna. Her eyes were puffy, and her face was streaked with tears, although she wasn’t crying now. She was just staring out the window, over the streets of town and the blue scoop of harbor. Margot followed her gaze. Something about this vantage point transported Margot back 150 years, to the days of Alfred Coates Hamilton and the whaling industry, when Nantucket had been responsible for most of the country’s oil production. Women had stood on rooftops, scanning the horizon for the ships that their husbands or fathers or brothers were sailing on.

“I have a question,” Margot said.

“What’s that?” Jenna asked.

“Did you go to Brant Point?”

“Yes,” Jenna said.

“And did you go to Madaket?”

“Of course,” Jenna said.

“I didn’t see you,” Margot said. “If you had biked to Madaket, I would have seen you.”

“I didn’t bike,” Jenna said. “I hitched a ride.”

“You hitched?” Margot said. “I’m surprised anyone stopped to pick you up. You look like an Alphabet City junkie.”

“Four Bulgarian guys in a red pickup,” Jenna said. “It was pretty funny. They’re baggers at the Stop & Shop.”

“That’s not funny,” Margot said. “They could have taken advantage of you. Who brought you back to town?”

“The guy driving the Santos Rubbish truck.”

“Really?” Margot said.

“Really,” Jenna said.

“But you knew I would come looking for you, right?” Margot said. “You knew I would find you.”

“I figured probably,” Jenna said.

Margot gulped fresh air from the one partially open window. She was sweating, she was very, very thirsty, and Roger—who represented 150 people and over a hundred thousand dollars—was waiting for an answer one way or the other.

“Listen…” Margot said.

“No,” Jenna said. “You listen.”

Margot clamped her mouth shut and nodded once sharply. She hadn’t known what to say next anyway.